


That Really Works for Me

by runsinthefamily



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: D/s, F/M, Oral Sex, Service, negotiation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:56:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runsinthefamily/pseuds/runsinthefamily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set between the movie proper and the coda where Jupe and Caine have their date in the sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Really Works for Me

It started as just a tactic, something Stinger of all people had suggested. Caine was dubious, but Jupiter had always been a "why the hell not?" kind of girl and so she spent hours and hours in hologram recordings, watching Seraphi Abraxus walk, talk, sneer, and generally be a complete and utter asshole. Jupiter was sort of reluctantly impressed with the woman, actually. Careful review of business records, now open to Jupiter as an Abraxus heir, revealed that Titus hadn't been lying when he'd said his mother had changed her mind about the Immortality business. She'd delayed harvest on three planets for years, several hundred years in one case, and had stopped taking Regenex. The closer the recordings got to her death, the older Seraphi looked. It was a bizarre experience, watching her own face age, get droopy, look more and more like her mother. 

"Could be worse, I suppose," she muttered to herself, staring Seraphi in her paused, unseeing eyes. "I could look like Vassily." Seraphi was wearing a particularly imperial moue of scorn, and Jupiter pursed up her lips and cut her eyes sideways, trying to duplicate it. _I am an interglactic Empress of Industry and you are the scum I wouldn't even bother walking on._ She glanced in the mirror she held, trying to keep all her facial muscles still. Constipated. She looked constipated. "Goddamnit," she said.

"You've got the tone right," said Stinger from where he leaned on the doorframe. 

"She was pretty foul mouthed, wasn't she?" said Jupiter. That had been a surprise. In contrast to her pale and languid offspring, Seraphi had been brash and quickspoken. 

"Face of an angel, mouth of a longhauler," said Stinger. 

"'I wouldn't Seed a shithole with your rancid trash-scraping of a genetic legacy,'" Jupiter quoted. "Lady could turn a phrase. I just don't know how it's going to help me in a boardroom."

"The Abraxuses loved their mother," said Stinger. "Even Balem loved her. Your face was enough to drive him insane. If you drop some of her favorite curses, get a couple gestures down - anything that can throw your enemy off balance is a tactical advantage."

"I suppose." She looked morosely in the mirror. Up against immortals who'd been scheming since the cradle. She was going to need every advantage she could get.

Stinger lifted a hand to his ear. "Caine's calling in. He'll be docking shortly."

Jupiter tapped her new neural implant, switching off the holodisplay. "Did he find him?"

"Your very own Advocate Bob. Can I ask, Majesty -"

"Because he was really useful on Orus, and he didn't seem happy there, and I need some clerical support that I can be sure isn't playing some long game of betrayal for the Abraxuses." Jupiter stepped past Stinger into the corridor. 

"And Caine finds him very annoying." Stinger fell in behind her, standard bodyguard flanking position, his wings clacking restlessly on his back.

Jupiter's mouth twitched. "There is that, too," she agreed.

Caine. The problem of Caine. In her admittedly spotty romantic history, her seduction technique had featured a lot of running her mouth until her suitor kissed her to shut her up. Caine, after the memorable moment on the destructing processing plant, had not made a single move to kiss her again, regardless of how much she blathered or stood close or (in her lowest hour) pretended to trip so he would be forced to catch her. It was driving her slightly bonkers, all the mouth-staring and lip-biting and the way he kept ignoring her pointed hints about "technically, we could still die at any moment." He was still so hung up on the whole "Entitled" thing. Getting his wings back had made things worse, as if his reinstated rank as Legionnaire had stiffened all the walls between them, made him even more conscious of social propriety. 

She'd fallen back into the worst kind of kindergarten behaviour, pulling his pigtails in every way she could manage. He was so goddamned _stoic_ these days, it took a truly heroic effort to make him do more than bow his head obediently. He'd clenched his jaw when she'd asked him to go fetch the Advocate. His nostrils had actually flared. She took it as a personal victory.

"I could have gone," said Stinger. "You know he hates it when you send him away."

"Your daughter is still recovering," said Jupiter. "I wouldn't make you leave her."

"I appreciate that, Majesty," said Stinger. "Still, he's likely to make you pay for it."

She sighed. "I really don't know what to do," she admitted. "He's not happy, is he? Should I just drop the whole thing? On the other hand, he was the one who kissed me! And now he - how is this my fault?" She rounded on Stinger, who skidded to a stop barely in time to avoid running her over. "Is he having second thoughts? Does he want to leave? I didn't really ask him when I spoke to the Aegis about you guys, but I thought - and you said -"

"Majesty," said Stinger. He put a hand gently on her elbow. "Don't send him away." He worried his bottom lip with his teeth for a moment and then shook his head. "I'm not the person to talk to about this."

"I know, I'm sorry," said Jupiter. "I've asked him and asked him and all he does is give me non-answers and then these _looks_ and I'm getting really very," she made clutchy claw-fists in the air, "frustrated."

"If you'll take my advice," said Stinger, with dragging reluctance, "stop asking."

She blinked at him.

"Start telling," he said. "And, god help me, that's all I'm going to say about it."

Jupiter let that one sit for a moment, while Stinger looked everywhere but her. "Hmm," she said, turned on her heel and set off again.

She found him waiting in the second cargo bay, watching as the crew unloaded supplies from his sleek little ship. It was too nice a ship, really, for the use he put it to, but Jupiter was very weak willed when it came to Caine, and there wasn't much else she was inclined to spend her money on. She was pretty sure he liked it, for all his protests about the expense. He'd very nearly smiled when she'd revealed it to him. 

"Majesty!" Advocate Bob came toward her, as fussy and cute and precise as she remembered. "How lovely to see you again." He bowed.

"Hello," she said. "I hope that I didn't call you away from any important bureaucratic, um, stuff."

"My entire existence is important bureaucratic stuff, your Majesty, but I'm sure I can catch up when I return."

"Oh," she looked to Caine uncertainly, "did Caine not tell you - I - this isn't a visit, not that it's not nice to see you, but I was hoping actually ..." Caine's face was deliberately, provokingly blank. She narrowed her eyes at him. "He basically kidnapped you, didn't he?"

Advocate Bob waved a hand in a somewhat frantic manner. "I wouldn't go that far, your Majesty, I'm sure that you have your reasons. My employers will be understanding."

Caine's upper lip twitched. It wasn't a smile, but it wasn't _not_ a smile. He met her eyes directly, challengingly, and then dropped his gaze to the floor.

"Hmm," said Jupiter. "His instructions were to speak to your employers and then convey my request to you. An offer of employment. I want you to become my majordomo. I need assistance with etiquette, day-to-day affairs, and managing my estates, most of which I haven't actually seen yet. Are you interested?"

Something fizzled and spat inside Bob's head. "Am I - my goodness, I'm not sure I'm qualified - I'm under contract to - but of course, as Entitled, you can - I'll need some upgrades, but -"

"Anything you need, I'll foot the bill," said Jupiter. She smiled at Bob. "You did such a great job on Orus, really came through for me."

"Then, I, yes!" Bob smiled back at her. "Thank you, your Majesty!"

"Oh, and don't worry, if I'm assassinated, I'll make sure you're taken care of," she said, patting his arm. 

Caine's head snapped up at that, and she saw the glint of an eyetooth. 

"Chill," she told him. "I'm making it a standard employment rider, what with the _situation._ "

There were, at last count, some one hundred and forty-six contracts out on her life. Keepers and bounty hunters weren't even the worst of it. Not all disgraced legionnaires had the moral backbone of Caine and Stinger, she'd discovered after her second visit to Kalique's home. Caine was still convinced Kalique had been behind that one, but Jupiter wasn't so sure. It had been so very _overt._

"Very kind of you, your Majesty," said Bob.

"Coordinate with the support staff to get um, quarters, or whatever you need? Stinger will get you set up with access to my accounts and files." Jupiter gave him Seraphi Smile #14, Warm Dismissal. She must have gotten it right, because he beamed, bowed, and hustled off with Stinger.

Jupiter turned to Caine. "You're in trouble," she said.

"Your Majesty," he acknowledged.

"And," she stepped closer to him, "you did it on purpose. Didn't you?"

"Your Majesty," he said again, bland as vanilla pudding.

"Hmmm," she said, thinking about _telling_ vs _asking_ and how very uncomfortable Stinger had been. "Follow." She put a little Seraphi into it, just a touch of icy hauteur.

She was halfway to the door before he caught up with her, his footsteps uncharacteristically hurried and uncertain, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.


End file.
